Foreign Property Insurers Meeting More Server Challenges

Foreign property insurance firms, which account for about 1% of the Chinese market, are suffering more severe challenges as Chinese property insurance firms, which have taken the absolute advantage on the market, started rebounding with a strong momentum.

Greg Otterson, CEO of Sun Alliance Insurance ( China) Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of Royal & Sun Alliance UK plc, capitalized at RMB 500m, and with its Head Office in Shanghai, said during an interview on October 19, 2010 that foreign property insurance firms are facing double pressure and four challenges on the Chinese market. In his opinion, the four challenges include fierce market competition, restricted operating zone of foreign property insurance firms, hard-to-harmonize between foreign property insurance firms and their head offices, and no natural advantage of foreign property insurance firms’ development in China.

However, the CEO still is confident of the Chinese property insurance market, predicting that a basket of insurance and product quality liability insurance will become the property insurance products with most development potential on the Chinese market.